On Crappy Music Download UI

Quite recently, I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the UI of downloading music. Not just any old downloading, mind. Specifically the scenario where you buy some physical artifact and it gives you a code to go download a digital copy of a record. Mostly this is because I was working with [Leslie](http://sidewithus.com) to build a piece of software that does exactly that. I’m very pleased with the quality of the experience we built, but it’s alarming how bad some can be.

It’s now the norm to get a little card with vinyl purchases to get a download, and depending on the label, the download experience will vary. The URL you go to (whether it’s attributed to the band, or the label), whether you enter one code, two codes, whether you’re forced to enter personal info to get the download, how many times you can download… many subtle variances. Design wise few are fully realized, generally you enter your code in a barebones UI and a zip file comes out the other side. It works, some more cheerfully than others.

This post is about a bad example, Dropcards.

Here’s a service that provides the ‘code redemption and download’ facility to other labels. It’s full of bells and whistles that I guess help make something minimal like this salable, but somewhere along the way, Dropcard’s UI has completely missed its primary function. Here it is:


The UI is a small Adobe Flash widget. The form to enter your access code is tiny, and after you enter it it remains, empty, so you don’t know if you need to enter the code a second time.

Step two presents the following: “All Tomorrow’s Parties has requested that you enter your email address for their”… and then the text ends abruptly.

This has occurred because Flash is a piece of shit. Simple stuff like legible text that overflows properly when the record label’s name is too long is too much to ask. But even accepting that, the copy is poor. It’s is not a request at all, it’s a _requirement_. I cannot access the download unless I complete the form. What’s more, whilst I’d heard of All Tomorrow’s Parties music festivals, I had no idea they were a record label as well. I don’t think that’s a unreasonable lack of knowledge on my part. On first reading, I thought I was being signed up for an unrelated promotion. The amount of text here was constrained by the widget design concept. It needn’t have been.

This UI is also displaying a honking big ‘hazard’ icon. When you’re supposed to be asking nicely for your customer to join your mailing list—which they probably don’t want to do—don’t also imply that they are in error.

So, I’ve joined the ATP mailing list. That’s not so bad. (I assume. Unless the ‘enter your email address for their…’ sentence actually preceded ‘baby enslavement programme’.)

On to the music! Right? Kinda…


What happens now with every other code redemption and download system I’m aware of (including the one I wrote), is that your browser pops up its download manager and downloads a zip file containing the album, perhaps a JPG of the album art or event a PDF copy of the cover booklet (ala iTunes). Dropcard does not do this. Instead, it shows the track listing. And because it’s in Flash, it has a built in media player! How _useful_!

There is no ‘Download All’ button. You have to click ‘Download’ next to every single track. Individually. When you click ‘Download’, the track list goes away. Then you are prompted to choose a download location on your computer.

My web browser (Safari) is configured to download files to my Desktop without prompting. But, because this is _Flash_ we’re using here OH-MY-GOD-WHAT-THE-FUCK-IS-A-SYSTEM-PREFERENCE-I-SHOULD-IGNORE-THAT-AND-JUST-ASK-YOU-ANYWAY-TO-BE-SURE-I-MEAN-MAYBE-YOU-CHANGED-YOUR-MIND-OR-MAYBE-IM-TOO-LAZY-AND-STUPID-TO-FIND-OUT-BY-MYSELF. Ahem.

So having chosen to save the the file to my desktop (again), the list of tracks is replaced by a progress panel. If you click on this progress panel, the download is cancelled. There is no way to minimize it to start downloading another track. Not only is there no combined zip file for the album, you have to wait whilst each song downloads before you can click on the next one.

Oh, the only thing that’s been done right in this entire operation? The MP3s are 320kbps. So the downloads are bigger. So the wait between downloads is longer.

Sigh. So, I’ve downloaded all 7 tracks from Tarot Sport. I’m relieved there weren’t more (nice work with the long songs, Fuck Buttons, I thank you.) I add them to iTunes. Are they tagged? Are they fuck. They haven’t even set the _Artist field_, let along included album art. That goes beyond a crap UI, that’s just incredibly lazy. I mean, you’re providing this download as a free bonus, I accept, but only because I’ve already paid you a premium to own the physical copy. Calling something a bonus doesn’t excuse untagged MP3s.

I’ve purchased the record for the artist, not the label. This download is pretty much the label’s only opportunity to address me. It’s a simple app, a really short process between a paid customer and the record label. That requires only very simple input and output. The functionality doesn’t take much, and as such there is lots of room for design, polish and _engagement_.

These download interactions provide a label the chance to do all sorts of positive self-promotion without getting in the way of the customer getting their download. Instead, Dropcard is packed with stupid gimmicks (like inline playback), makes the process more laborious than it needs to be, communicates rudely on behalf of the label and then ships me crappy media.

Flash was the wrong tool for the implementation—it’s badly implemented Flash at that. Dropcards are much worse as a result. But the entire design approach to Dropcard’s system seems ill conceived and out of touch with their primary use case.

Cupcake Camp Playlist

If you attended Cupcake Camp today in San Francisco (and let’s face it, you should have done; it was delicious) you may have wondered between mouthfuls of cake and icing “Just what _are_ these splendid and eclectic tunes accompanying my noshing?”—or a thought transcript to that effect.

I’m glad you asked. I’ve uploaded a PDF, printed out of iTunes. You can [see it here](http://benward.me/files/Cupcake-Camp-Playlist.pdf). Remember when WinAMP used to have an export as HTML button? Yeah. Those days are gone.

I submitted it as an iTunes iMix too [You can view it here](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=334641037 “Open iMix in iTunes”), but only about 60% of the music is in iTunes, so it’s not complete.

Sharing the Love

I [linked to](http://blog.benward.me/post/184936610) my exciting new [Fever ‘Saved Items’ feed](http://feed.benapps.net/?rss=saved) before, but the thought occurs that I could link to my various other feeds of affection as well, so here they are.

Would love to know if people actual consume any of these, and how, and what they get from them. I don’t necessarily mean just mine; I mean anyone’s. It’s the concept of following favourite items that interests me (I think it’s a sorely neglected form of vitality).

So, if the order that I remember them:

* [Saved items from Feeds](http://feed.benapps.net/?rss=saved) (feed from [Fever](http://feedafever.com))
* [Favourite videos on YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BenWardcouk&view=favorites)
* [Favourite tweets](http://twitter.com/BenWard/favorites)
* [‘Liked’ video on Vimeo](http://vimeo.com/benward/likes)
* [‘Liked’ items on Tumblr](http://www.tumblr.com/liked/by/benw) (now neglected in favour of Fever)
* [Loved tracks on Last.FM](http://www.last.fm/user/Shovel/library/loved)
* [Loved tracks on Hype Machine](http://hypem.com/BenWard)
* [Favourite photographs on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/benward/favorites)
* [Ffffound images](http://ffffound.com/home/benward/found/)
* [Bookmarks on Delicious](http://del.icio.us/benward)

Exercises in Self Discovery

The previous post is a first step in trying to identify myself. I’ve stared at my unstyled blog pages for a long time now and not really being an artist, I got nothin’. If I were to approach someone to design my blog for me, or even just some art for the header, I haven’t the faintest clue what I’d ask for, not even a direction, style or starting point.

The four words try to describe me in the context of what I create, how I communicate and how I write. Oddly, they came out of imagining something artistic and visual.

I have no idea where this will end up, but I’m all ears for other forms of interesting self-discovery. I’m trying to end up somewhere that I can make something visual that represents me and what I do.

4 Words to Get Closer to Me

* Spontaneous
* Obsessive
* Passionate
* Tangential

Feed Reading

[Nick Douglas has reached the point of realisation](http://toomuchnick.com/post/167706635/why-cant-i-read-all-my-blogs-on-tumblr) that Tumblr is a better feed reader UI than others. Where, at this point in history, ‘others’ is pretty much Google Reader. He wants the ability to read other feeds in Tumblr.

I’ve gone the other way. I no-longer read Tumblr posts in Tumblr itself, instead all my Tumblr subscriptions go into [Fever](http://feedafever.com). I loved reading in Tumblr because it blew Google Reader out of the water in terms of legibility and, well, _joy_. But Fever does that too, and is, of course, open to reading the whole web, not just the strange blogging bubble of Tumblr.

Fever has the ability to save/fave posts. What it currently lacks is a way to distribute them outside. Someone wrote an Atom feed hack for it, which is a good start, but a full API would be better. I miss being able to click the heart on people’s posts here, and if I could have Fever cascade that info back into Tumblr, that would be pretty great. There’s a scripting challenge ahead.

AT-AT

Some months ago, Twitter [fixed, or broke](http://blog.twitter.com/2009/05/small-settings-update.html), their @replies feature. They made it so that all the ‘@username’ messages you sent to your Twitter stream were only visible to people who also followed ‘http://twitter.com/username’.

After initial irritation and (ongoing) [fruitless protest](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23fixreplies), the solution has to be accepting Twitter’s decision and instead work out a new pattern for the use-case they’ve left unfulfilled.

The use case is this: *The act of responding to a tweet (perhaps, but not exclusively conversationally) whilst still posting content of standalone relevance to your public feed*.

The syntax I have adopted, and advocate for this purpose is just a simple enhancement of the existing `@` mechanism: **`@@`**.

It works because prefixing a @username with any other character breaks out of the existing replies mechanism, and therefore keeps the post in regular public streams. I’m advocating `@@` because it’s the most obvious evolution of the existing form. More obvious than `-@` or `_@` or `!@` or (worst of all) ` @`, which are also being used at time of writing. I posit that `@@` is clearer as it does not introduce anything new, no-one has to ask “What does * mean?”, it’s like emphasis. Furthermore, repeating the same character is easier and faster to type.

“But I don’t want to see your @@replies!”, will say some people. They’re missing the point. This emerging practice is about the author indicating that a tweet—despite being a reply—absolutely is a 1st class post in their stream. Their stream, that they alone curate. If they explicitly indicate that a reply should be public, and you don’t like it, then it’s up to you to unfollow them just the same as you would if they posted dull or irrelevant posts of any other kind.

There’s a supplementary, important benefit as well. By embracing a new convention to explicitly promote _some_ replies, users should embrace _both_ ‘kinds’ of reply. You’re unlikely to want all your replies public, so you can ‘whisper’ replies back and forth using the existing single-@ syntax too. Prefixing all replies as a protest is pointless, so embrace the new way to control how your replies are published.

Existing conversation trackers don’t work with this. The `@@` replies get left out of threading tools. That’s a shame, but that’s the reality of new behaviour.Existing conversation trackers depend on the in_reply_to header, which in some third party apps (such as Twitterrific on Mac OSX), does not get pushed to Twitter unless you explicitly include @user at the start of a message. In effect, @@ breaks this, as does every other prefix, or placing a @mention elsewhere in the Tweet. The Twitter documentation states that the username need only be included somewhere It takes time for any syntax to be recognised and supported properly, that as much as anything is why I’ve documented `@@` here, as a reference and explanation for you to use as you advocate the practice, and to encourage everyone to settle on the `@@` syntax in preference to the many that currently circulate.

Further background follows:

Twitter has a tradition of evolving from conventions. The ‘@username’ replies feature became a native part of the service after users developed the syntax for themselves (and after some external tools added behaviour to it; hyperlinked names, and so forth). It [later become ‘@mentions’](http://blog.twitter.com/2009/03/replies-are-now-mentions.html), after users extended it to prefix all references to fellow users. Similarly, the ‘#hashtag’ syntax was introduced and was natively adopted in the same way.

Some months ago, Twitter changed (broke) the way some people use replies. No longer could you see replies your followees made to other users who you were not also following. The reason behind this is that a large proportion of Twitter users write ‘@friend LOL mate!!1’-type replies. _[A lot](http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%22LOL%21%21%21%22+-RT)_. If that kind of user is in your twitter feed, seeing their inane replies with no original context is irritating at best. Twitter changed the service to support that use case, rather than support both use cases (as they [previously had a user preference](http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/how-replies-work-on-twitter-and-how.html) to toggle between; an implementation that was processor intensive on Twitter’s side.)

The expense was twofold: First, users who post valuable, useful content within their replies. Some are engaged in a discussion that’s relevant to their public Twitter stream, thus relevant to their followers. In less cynical terms, they simply try to author replies so that each one is also a standalone, useful piece of content. The philosophy is that whilst you’re replying to something, you’re also posting something. If anything, it was an embrace of Twitter’s limitation; precisely _because_ your replies were visible to all, there’s a reason to write worthwhile replies.

Second, because those richer, fuller replies piqued the interest of people outside the conversation, replies were a viral means of discovering new people, and interesting new threads of conversation. The cost of ignoring a reply that doesn’t interest you is extremely low (just as ignoring any other message), so the system worked well. [Twitter claimed at the time](http://blog.twitter.com/2009/05/small-settings-update.html) that new ways to discover people would be introduced, but no news is forthcoming.

Evolution of new syntax is a pragmatic, logical response. The simplification of original @replies left this open use case, and using explicit `@@` syntax means that authors are in control of what they promote into their public feed.

For those who are not Apple

Had a great conversation with [Rebecca](http://www.rebeccacottrell.co.uk/) this evening about mobile UI design, off the back of [Sony Ericsson’s rubbish new Android front-end](http://gizmodo.com/5310236/sony-ericssons-android-rachael-ui-makes-me-want-to-ditch-my-iphone?autoplay=true) that people are apparently and inexplicably fawning over. All style, no substance. It’s unquestionably going to be utterly irritating in actual day-to-day usage.

Anyway, phone manufacturers that aren’t Apple have a nightmare on their hands. Apple have moved at simply astronomical pace. It’s only been two years, but they ramped up iPhone into such a behemoth, it’s hard to know where to start in mounting competition.

Near the core, I think is this: There’s not one feature that’s a deal-_maker_ to displace the iPhone, but there are a thousand deal-breakers that would make your new handset inconsiderable.

So many things even subtly wrong would spoil the user experience we’re used to on the iPhone. There are so many things, large and small; features and subtleties, that leave a new entrant looking inadequate compared to the iPhone.

It’s a massive problem. Apple has won at producing something that’s incredibly polished from the start, and now they’re building useful new features at faster pace than other manufactures. How on earth is anyone supposed to compete with that? Palm are the only people to come close, and they did it by throwing away all their existing products.

iTunes Stats Meme

> Fun stats time!

I shall play your meme game, because this is a really interesting game of stats. It is certainly flawed, since ratings and playcounts don’t penetrate my entire iTunes library right now (I did a library reset a few years ago), but, all the same:

Tumblr users will need to view this on the full page, because for some reason, the Tumblr dashboard renders definition lists inline…

Number of Songs

11607

Number of Albums

1180, although allow for some incomplete albums, and also the fact that records that come with ‘bonus’ tracks get split into two, to make sure that playback ends where it’s supposed to end. Let’s guess at 900 complete albums.

Most Recently Played Song

“Fast Fuse” by Kasabia

Most Played Song

“Two Steps, Twice” by Foals (93 plays)

Most Played Song that maybe you haven’t heard

Quite likely the same song, but working further down the list: “Girl with One Eye” by Florence and the Machine

Most Recently Added Album

“45:33” by LCD Soundsystem. I’ve had this on vinyl for ages, mind you.

First Song Alphabetically:

“A” by Barenaked Ladies

Last Song Alphabetically

“Zuton Fever” by The Zutons (alas, the far more gorgeous “Zoom!” by Super Furry Animals got beaten out…)

Longest Title:

“The Black Hawk War, Or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization And Still Feel Good About Yourself In The Morning, Or, We Apologize For The Inconvenience But You’re Going To Have To Leave Now, Or…” by Sufjan Stevens. From his ‘Illinoise’ record, which offers up all of the top seven longest songs in my library.

Smallest Number In A Song Title

“Zero” by both Smashing Pumpkins and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Or, if you want to be specific about use of numerical characters, “#1#” by Animal Collective.

Largest Number In A Song Title:

“1,000,000” performed by REM

Shortest Song

“Yr Atal Genhedlaeth” by Gruff Rhys

Longest Song

“Megatroid Mixsound” by Diplo — a 42:57 mix of samples used by DJ Shadow. Technically, not a song, though. “The Man Don’t Give a Fuck (Live)” by Super Furry Animals is 22:31, but that’s a live performance. “My Father My King” by Mogwai, 20:13.

Shortest Song With A 5-Star Rating:

“Download” by Super Furry Animals (from Radiator, 3:19). Note that I am extremely stingy with 5-star ratings these days, trying to leave it free for really special items. Also, I’m out of the habit of using ratings.

Longest Song With A 5-Star Rating:

“Midnight Surprise” by Lightspeed Champion (9:56)

First Album Alphabetically

“A Kind of Magic” by Queen. Shit! “Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline” by Gomez beaten out by a record I’ve never played.

Last Album Alphabetically

“Yr Atal Genhedlaeth” by Gruff Rhys

First Album Numerically

“1” by The Beatles. Although, that’s a compilation. Damien Rice’s “9” is the first album-proper (followed by Blur’s “13”)

Last Album Numerically

“1992–2002” – the Underworld compilation. Again, it’s a compilation, and its a year not just any number. Next up is “100th Window” by Massive Attack.

First Five Songs That Pop Up On iTunes DJ:

1. “Breaking Up” by Eskimo Joe
2. “Ambition” by Doves
3. “My Descent Into Madness” by Eels
4. “In Bloom” by Nirvana
5. “Citrus” by The Hold Steady

First songs I have never played

This is of course is influenced by resetting play counts a few years ago, but next up in my ‘Lost Songs’ play list:

1. “Moral Kiosk” by REM
2. “Maximum Overdrive” by Winnebago Deal (I sense that’s going to get skipped…)
3. “Lurgee” by Radiohead
4. “Offend in Every Way” by The White Stripes
5. “Benedictus” by Simon and Garfunkel

Done!

timoni via mrgan, via gordonshumway

.me

Some time ago I picked up some new personal domains, [benward.me](http://benward.me) and [bnwrd.me](http://bnwrd.me). I’d somewhat dismissed the .me TLD, but as time goes on and the opportunity to claim benward.com seems distant, I’ve decided to switch over.

I spend a certain amount of time thinking about what makes a good URL, and the old [ben-ward.co.uk](http://ben-ward.co.uk) set-up has a number of problems.

* Country affiliation, even though I’m fairly nation non-specific at this point
* The United Kingdom registration system requires that the .uk TLD be prefixed by .co.
* The hyphen was clumsy, it’s difficult to pronounce to people, and people keep going to benward.co.uk instead, which isn’t me.
* The result out loud was “ben-dash-ward-dot-co-dot-uk”. Clumsy.
* People unfamiliar with the UK also hear the initial “.co” and assume that’s going to be “.com”, or “.com.uk”. It’s really not a very good domain name.

So, with my pair of .me domains in hand, I can gladly switch to a nice simple “benward.me” whenever someone needs it out loud, and confusion is forever gone.

benward.me and bnwrd.me are also siblings in the .me TLD, so when the latter is used for short URLs to the expanded, vowelled-up[*](#me-footnote) version, the transformation will be smoother, too.

_Of course_, all the old domains work, hurtling you around the internets with 301 redirects. Apparently this means I won’t get destroyed by Google, too. We’ll see.

One other semantic change I made whilst doing all this tweaking, is to move this Scattered Mind blog onto [blog.benward.me](http://blog.benward.me), dropping this whole micro nonsense. It turns out that ‘microblogging’ is… blogging. And so, the domain is fixed. Again, [micro.ben-ward.co.uk](http://micro.ben-ward.co.uk) will 301 redirect over to the new sub-domain, although it’s taking a little time for the DNS to update.

* Yes, I said ‘vowelled-up’. ‘vowelled-down’ is going to be my new way of describing Web 2.0 branding.